/black is traditional...

SteakMan: Why? Did you miss-read that as curable?

boarch: treatable != curable

Guess you guys miss the point of what autism is or does to a person.... and what the definition of "treatment" is (therapy used to remedy a health problem).

It's not "treatable" (nor curable, at least so far).

What they are doing is just looking at another way to find a way to communicate with some of the people from a limited spectrum of autism. It's not a treatment, as it's not fixing something to make it "work correctly".

It might help some, but I'd go more with it providing false hope to many.

I've seen this tried with puppets, dolls, images, etc. and while it can work for some semi-functional autistic people, what it is, is simply an approach to focus the handicapped person enough to get them to participate.

Treatment? nah.. this is similar to the boom in "assisted" keyboard stories from a few years back.

It's no remedy.. it's like saying that someone with a missing leg, is being "treated" by being given a wooden peg.

The reality is that with enough work, for some, they can be trained as you'd train an animal, to respond to stimulus, to understand that there's a "payment" for some behavior, punishment for others.

For them to get an autistic person to "understand", is like someone yelling in a foreign language while pointing to an object. Eventually the person can get the concept of what the person might mean, but 10 times harder.

It's not a treatment, it doesn't "alleviate" their autism.

Stopped reading at:

"Yet autism is treatable"

Then started to wish the heads of all concerned would assplode for being this stupid.

If it was treatable, it wouldn't exist.

Another freaking study that if anyone around me reads, will offer their "new knowledge" about my kid and how she can miraculously be "fixed".

God, how I hate these articles and so-called research.

_{/has autistic daughter}

moothemagiccow: i'm sure the poor aspies won't be able to tell

fark your mother.

Can you fark it?

The scientist quoted in this article, Simon Baron-Cohen, is one of the world's leading experts on autism (I've read so many of his studies for tangentially related work) and is indeed related to Sacha Baron-Cohen. I think they're cousins or brothers, but I can't remember.